Tennessee baseball head coach Tony Vitello met with the media in Columbia following a 7-5 thrilling series-clinching win over South Carolina Saturday.
Read about the win HERE.
Vitello discussed Cannon Peebles’ big ninth-inning homer, how his team battled in a come-from-behind victory, Andrew Fischer’s defensive play and Nate Snead’s value out of the bullpen.
See everything Vitello said following the win below.
On come from behind win against South Carolina:
“Yeah, it’s never easy. The history, tradition and the park – today’s crowd was bigger than yesterday’s. You can see, we are getting their best punch and not just with their two pitchers they threw at us. Just in general. It kind of pushed our guys. Our guys were competing early. Jarvis [Evans] was keeping them off-balance, but like you said, the way they responded and some of the plays they made. Ariel’s (Antigua) play is one of the best ones I’ve ever seen. He is fully capable of doing a bunch of different things. But I think that just came from trying to find a way to win. We found a different way to win than we’ve won so far this season, which is really important. Like you said, you did it on the road. You don’t want to pat them on the back too much because, again, the first half of the game wasn’t very good from our standpoint. A lot of want-to right there on display, which was impressive.”
On Cannon Peebles and what the homer meant to him:
“I think a ton. The guy is at the facility before everybody. I went into the weight room, clearly not to work out. Just to fill my water bottle. He’s in there an hour before going to the field. It just means so much to him. Sometimes, like other guys who have competed before, it can kind of squash out your ability a little bit. When you are in just kind of compete mode, and I got to get in there and get my cleats in there for my team, because it is the end of the game. We got this back-and-forth deal going on. Then your full skillset is on display. You’ve seen that kid since he was a freshman. It’s a big-time skillset that last night you saw defensively and today it was a little more offensively.”
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On Andrew Fischer’s strides defensively:
“I don’t want to talk about it in the office. That’s the best – I think you’ve been doing this now for a while – so that’s kind of a good answer actually for you. And then Dean (Curley) being asked to do what he did. We didn’t look very fundamental on the bunt, but it was a tricky situation, and we’ve had other third basemen that have played in the big leagues or are going to play in the big leagues kind of make the same mistake. Hopefully, that means we won’t make it again the rest of the year. But when you have to do that and then you have to go to second, and at the end of the day, he’s a shortstop for us and was the shortstop of last year’s team, it says a lot about him and Fisch (Andrew Fischer).
“You give me really my first opportunity to talk about something that is very scary as a coach. When you’ve got a Team USA guy and then one of the biggest portal names, and you don’t know where you are going to play them. Finally, [we] had a conversation with those two guys behind closed doors, and it was one of the most comfortable conversations I’ve ever had, even though the topic was very uncomfortable of, ‘[We] don’t know where we are going to play you guys, and there might be times where we take you out of a game.’ But those guys are big time teammates.”
On Nate Snead being a security blanket:
“We tried to bridge the gap a little bit there, and last weekend at Alabama, maybe we brought him in a little too early. I also think Alabama gets credit for kind of wearing him out a little bit. And it’s college baseball. Not many teams have a Mariano Rivera. You’re looking to just finish a game. So, the fact he has been a swiss army knife for us in the past has been really valuable. I’m speaking about last year.
“But this year, he has kicked it up a notch. Because now, he is a team leader. He’s capable of starting a game, getting us out of a jam, going long-distance, so it’s invaluable.”
